Still Alice

Still Alice is a film that answers the question: Is Pinkberry still a thing? I was thinking about this a few days before I saw the film, because someone brought up Borders, and Pinkberry opened a shop in Buckhead, next door to Borders, a few weeks prior to the demise of the bookseller. There is a CVS beside Pinkberry, so you can refill your Prozac prescription, and pop in and get some tasty fro-yo. But if you have froyo often enough, you won’t need the Prozac. Seriously, have you ever seen anyone crying into their fro-yo?

Yes, I am going somewhere with this. I have a lot of great memories of time spent in Atlanta. Then there are the times I passed out. And the times I have put a mental block on. The good memories, I want to hold on to them for as long as I can; if for no other reason than to prove that not all days suck.

Still Alice was a tough film for me to watch, having had an aunt who had Alzheimer’s. I know a little bit about what Alice’s family was going through. Very little. The scene that got to me most was when Alice visited the assisted living home, under the pretense that she was looking for a place for her parents. I visited my aunt in a home much like that one, and… I’ll just leave it there.

Much like Eddie Redmayne who won an Oscar for his portrayal of Stephen Hawking in The Theory of Everything, Julianne Moore had to go though a transformation to play the part of Alice Howland. Moore’s transformation was also rightly rewarded by The Academy.

Still Alice is a movie that could have gone wrong in lesser hands. Music teachers say that the notes you don’t play are often more important than the ones you do, and Moore played all the right ones without ever going over the top. Alice is not a showy role, it requires a tremendous amount of subtlety to pull off the part, and Moore was spot on.